Actor, former pro wrestler and deadpan Guardian of the Galaxy Dave Bautista is finally making his way to Gears of War, as a playable character in Gears 5.
It’s no secret Bautista has been eager to join the Gears of War universe for a while now, hoping to land a role in the movie of the same name which has been in development for years.
Before we get our hands on the movie however, it seems we’ll be able to get our hands on Bautista himself, or his avatar Batista at least, as he gears up for his role in Gears 5.
As the 50-year-old says in the above teaser, ‘it’s about f*cking time’.
The announcement was confirmation he’ll be appearing in the Xbox and Microsoft franchise, starting later this month on September 15.
As ComicBook notes, it’s worth noting Bautista appears under the ‘Batista’ spelling of his name, which is stylised after his wrestling name. Whether this means the ‘Batista’ of the game is different to the Bautista we know and love, it’s pretty unmistakable who the character really is.
After Bautista revealed the news on Twitter, head of The Coalition – the studio behind Gears of War – Rod Fergusson tweeted to say he was ‘so happy about this,’ and that Dave Bautista was, naturally, ‘really fun to work with in the VO [voice over] booth.’
A film version of the game has reportedly been in development since 2006, though seems to be stuck in studio purgatory at the teams behind it to try to work it all out.
As Rod Fergusson recently told IGN:
In order for the movie to be successful, it has to be a great movie first and a Gears movie second. Basically the way that we sort of reconciled that was, we said, ‘oh the movie should be an alternate reality. It should not be dependent on the game story, nor should it influence the game story.’
Nonetheless, not only does Dave Bautista see himself in a starring role for it, the one and only Terry Crews has thrown his hat in the ring (with the help of a few eager fans) to get in on the action.
Now all we need is a Terry Crews playable character in Gears 5 and we’ll be set. Bring it on!
Gears 5 will be available on Xbox One and PC platforms from September 6.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.